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Piper Kerman

Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison Hardcover – April 6, 2010

by Piper Kerman (Author)

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NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187–424—one of the millions of people who disappear “down the rabbit hole” of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman’s story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison—why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they’re there.

Praise for Orange Is the New Black

“Fascinating . . . The true subject of this unforgettable book is female bonding and the ties that even bars can’t unbind.”—People (four stars)

“I loved this book. It’s a story rich with humor, pathos, and redemption. What I did not expect from this memoir was the affection, compassion, and even reverence that Piper Kerman demonstrates for all the women she encountered while she was locked away in jail. I will never forget it.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

“This book is impossible to put down because [Kerman] could be you. Or your best friend. Or your daughter.”—Los Angeles Times

“Moving . . . transcends the memoir genre’s usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you.”—USA Today

“It’s a compelling awakening, and a harrowing one—both for the reader and for Kerman.”—Newsweek.com

Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Spiegel & Grau
Publication date

April 6, 2010
Dimensions

6.38 x 1.26 x 9.74 inches
ISBN-10

0385523386
ISBN-13

978-0385523387
See all details

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Relying on the kindness of strangers during her year's stint at the minimum security correctional facility in Danbury, Conn., Kerman, now a nonprofit communications executive, found that federal prison wasn't all that bad. In fact, she made good friends doing her time among the other women, many street-hardened drug users with little education and facing much longer sentences than Kerman's original 15 months. Convicted of drug smuggling and money laundering in 2003 for a scheme she got tangled up in 10 years earlier when she had just graduated from Smith College, Kerman, at 34, was a self-surrender at the prison: quickly she had to learn the endless rules, like frequent humiliating strip searches and head counts; navigate relationships with the other campers and unnerving guards; and concoct ways to fill the endless days by working as an electrician and running on the track. She was not a typical prisoner, as she was white, blue-eyed, and blonde (nicknamed the All-American Girl), well educated, and the lucky recipient of literature daily from her fiancé, Larry, and family and friends. Kerman's account radiates warmly from her skillful depiction of the personalities she befriended in prison, such as the Russian gangster's wife who ruled the kitchen; Pop, the Spanish mami; lovelorn lesbians like Crazy Eyes; and the aged pacifist, Sister Platte. Kerman's ordeal indeed proved life altering. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Just graduated from Smith College, Kerman made the mistake of getting involved with the wrong woman and agreeing to deliver a large cash payment for an international drug ring. Years later, the consequences catch up with her in the form of an indictment on conspiracy drug-smuggling and money-laundering charges. Kerman pleads guilty and is sentenced to 15 months in a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Entering prison in 2004—more than 10 years after her crime—Kerman finds herself submerged in the unique and sometimes overwhelming culture of prison, where kindness can come in the form of sharing toiletries, and an insult in the cafeteria can lead to an enduring enmity. Kerman quickly learns the rules—asking about the length of one’s prison stay is expected, but never ask about the crime that led to it—and carves a niche for herself even as she witnesses the way the prison system fails those who are condemned to it, many of them nonviolent drug offenders. An absorbing, meditative look at life behind bars. --Kristine Huntley

Review

“Kerman’s book is a fascinating look down the rabbit hole that is prison… Unforgettable.” –People

“Orange transcends the memoir genre's usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you. You'd expect bad behavior in prison. But it's the moments of joy, friendship and kindness that the author experienced that make Orange so moving and lovely…You sense [Kerman] wrote Orange to make readers think not about her but her fellow inmates. And, boy, does she succeed.” –USA Today

"In Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, Kerman puts us inside, from the first strip search...to the prison-issue unwashed underwear to the cucumbers and raw cauliflower that count as salad.... This book is impossible to put down because she could be you. Or your best friend. Or your daughter."
–Los Angeles Times

"Kerman neither sentimentalizes nor lectures. She keeps the details of her despair to a minimum along with her discussion of the outrages of the penal system, concentrating instead on descriptions of her direct experiences, both harrowing and hilarious, and the personalities of the women who shared them with her."
–Boston Globe

“Vivid, revealing…” —Entertainment Weekly

“[An] insightful and often very funny book…” —Salon.com

“Ten years after a fleeting post-Smith College flirtation with drug trafficking, Piper Kerman was arrested–a P.O.W. in the war on drugs. In Orange Is the New Black (Spiegel & Grau), Kerman presents–devoid of self-pity, and with novelistic flair–life in the clink as less Caged Heat and more Steel Magnolias. —Vanity Fair

“I loved this book, to a depth and degree that caught me by surprise. Of course it’s a compelling insider’s account of life in a women’s federal prison, and of course it’s a behind-the-scenes look at America’s war on drugs, and of course it’s a story rich with humor, pathos and redemption: All of that was to be expected. What I did not expect from this memoir was the affection, compassion, and even reverence that Piper Kerman demonstrates for all the women she encountered while she was locked away in jail. That was the surprising twist: that behind the bars of women's prisons grow extraordinary friendships, ad hoc families, and delicate communities. In the end, this book is not just a tale of prisons, drugs, crime, or justice; it is, simply put, a beautifully told story about how incredible women can be, and I will never forget it.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

“Don’t let the irreverent title mislead: This is a serious and bighearted book that depicts life in a women’s prison with great detail and—crucially—with empathy and respect for Piper Kerman’s fellow prisoners, most of whom did not and do not have her advantages and options. With its expert reporting and humane, clear-eyed storytelling, Orange Is the New Black will join Ted Conover’s Newjack among the necessary contemporary books about the American prison experience.” — Dave Eggers, author of Zeitoun and co-author of Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated

"I can't stop thinking about this marvelous book, about the generous and lovely women with whom Piper Kerman served her time. I never expected to pick up a memoir about prison and find myself immersed in a story of grace, of friendship, of loyalty and love. I have never read anything like this book, and I will read and reread it again and again."—Ayelet Waldman, author of Bad Mother and Daughter's Keeper

About the Author

Piper Kerman is vice president of a Washington, D.C.–based communications firm that works with foundations and nonprofits. A graduate of Smith College, she lives in Brooklyn.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

Are You Gonna Go My Way?

International baggage claim in the Brussels airport was large and airy, with multiple carousels circling endlessly. I scurried from one to another, desperately trying to find my black suitcase. Because it was stuffed with drug money, I was more concerned than one might normally be about lost luggage.

I was twenty-three in 1993 and probably looked like just another anxious young professional woman. My Doc Martens had been jettisoned in favor of beautiful handmade black suede heels. I wore black silk pants and a beige jacket, a typical jeune fille, not a bit counterculture, unless you spotted the tattoo on my neck. I had done exactly as I had been instructed, checking my bag in Chicago through Paris, where I had to switch planes to take a short flight to Brussels.

When I arrived in Belgium, I looked for my black rollie at the baggage claim. It was nowhere to be seen. Fighting a rushing tide of panic, I asked in my mangled high school French what had become of my suitcase. “Bags don’t make it onto the right flight sometimes,” said the big lug working in baggage handling. “Wait for the next shuttle from Paris—it’s probably on that plane.”

Had my bag been detected? I knew that carrying more than $10,000 undeclared was illegal, let alone carrying it for a West African drug lord. Were the authorities closing in on me? Maybe I should try to get through customs and run? Or perhaps the bag really was just delayed, and I would be abandoning a large sum of money that belonged to someone who could probably have me killed with a simple phone call. I decided that the latter choice was slightly more terrifying. So I waited.

The next flight from Paris finally arrived. I sidled over to my new “friend” in baggage handling, who was sorting things out. It is hard to flirt when you’re frightened. I spotted the suitcase. “Mon bag!” I exclaimed in ecstasy, seizing the Tumi. I thanked him effusively, waving with giddy affection as I sailed through one of the unmanned doors into the terminal, where I spotted my friend Billy waiting for me. I had inadvertently skipped customs.

“I was worried. What happened?” Billy asked.

“Get me into a cab!” I hissed.

I didn’t breathe until we had pulled away from the airport and were halfway across Brussels.

My graduation processional at Smith College the year before was on a perfect New England spring day. In the sun-dappled quad, bagpipes whined and Texas governor Ann Richards exhorted my classmates and me to get out there and show the world what kind of women we were. My family was proud and beaming as I took my degree. My freshly separated parents were on their best behavior, my stately southern grandparents pleased to see their oldest grandchild wearing a mortarboard and surrounded by WASPs and ivy, my little brother bored out of his mind. My more organized and goal-oriented classmates set off for their graduate school programs or entry-level jobs at nonprofits, or they moved back home—not uncommon during the depths of the first Bush recession.

I, on the other hand, stayed on in Northampton, Massachusetts. I had majored in theater, much to the skepticism of my father and grandfather. I came from a family that prized education. We were a clan of doctors and lawyers and teachers, with the odd nurse, poet, or judge thrown into the mix. After four years of study I still felt like a dilettante, underqualified and unmotivated for a life in the theater, but neither did I have an alternate plan, for academic studies, a meaningful career, or the great default—law school.

I wasn’t lazy. I had always worked hard through my college jobs in restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, winning the affection of my bosses and coworkers via sweat, humor, and a willingness to work doubles. Those jobs and those people were more my speed than many of the people I had met at college. I was glad that I had chosen Smith, a college full of smart and dynamic women. But I was finished with what was required of me by birth and background. I had chafed within the safe confines of Smith, graduating by a narrow margin, and I longed to experience, experiment, investigate. It was time for me to live my own life.

I was a well-educated young lady from Boston with a thirst for bohemian counterculture and no clear plan. But I had no idea what to do with all my pent-up longing for adventure, or how to make my eagerness to take risks productive. No scientific or analytical bent was evident in my thinking—what I valued was artistry and effort and emotion. I got an apartment with a fellow theater grad and her nutty artist girlfriend, and a job waiting tables at a microbrewery. I bonded with fellow waitrons, bartenders, and musicians, all equally nubile and constantly clad in black. We worked, we threw parties, we went skinny-dipping or sledding, we fucked, sometimes we fell in love. We got tattoos.

I enjoyed everything Northampton and the surrounding Pioneer Valley had to offer. I ran for miles and miles on country lanes, learned how to carry a dozen pints of beer up steep stairs, indulged in numerous romantic peccadilloes with appetizing girls and boys, and journeyed to Provincetown for midweek beach excursions on my days off throughout the summer and fall.

When winter set in, I began to grow uneasy. My friends from school told me about their jobs and their lives in New York, Washington, and San Francisco, and I wondered what the hell I was doing. I knew I wasn’t going back to Boston. I loved my family, but the fallout of my parents’ divorce was something I wanted to avoid completely. In retrospect a EuroRail ticket or volunteering in Bangladesh would have been brilliant choices, but I stayed stuck in the Valley.
Among our loose social circle was a clique of impossibly stylish and cool lesbians in their mid-thirties. These worldly and sophisticated older women made me feel uncharacteristically shy, but when several of them moved in next door to my apartment, we became friends. Among them was a raspy-voiced midwesterner named Nora Jansen who had a mop of curly sandy-brown hair. Nora was short and looked a bit like a French bulldog, or maybe a white Eartha Kitt. Everything about her was droll—her drawling, wisecracking husky voice, the way she cocked her head to look at you with bright brown eyes from under her mop, even the way she held her ever-present cigarette, wrist flexed and ready for gesture. She had a playful, watchful way of drawing a person out, and when she paid you attention, it felt as if she were about to let you in on a private joke. Nora was the only one of that group of older women who paid any attention to me. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight, but in Northampton, to a twenty-two-year-old looking for adventure, she was a figure of intrigue.

And then, in the fall of 1992, she was gone.

She reappeared after Christmas. Now she rented a big apartment of her own, furnished with brand-new Arts and Crafts–style furniture and a killer stereo. Everyone else I knew was sitting on thrift store couches with their roommates, while she was throwing money around in a way that got attention.

Nora asked me out for a drink, just the two of us, which was a first. Was it a date? Perhaps it was, because she took me to the bar of the Hotel Northampton, the closest local approximation to a swank hotel lounge, painted pale green with white trelliswork everywhere. I nervously ordered a margarita with salt, at which Nora arched a brow.

“Sort of chilly for a marg?” she commented, as she asked for a scotch.

It was true, the January winds were making western Massachusetts uninviting. I should have ordered something dark in a smaller glass—my frosty margarita now seemed ridiculously juvenile.

“What’s that?” she asked, indicating the little metal box I had placed on the table.

The box was yellow and green and had originally held Sour Lemon pastilles. Napoleon gazed westward from its lid, identifiable by his cocked hat and gold epaulettes. The box had served as a wallet for a woman I’d known at Smith, an upperclasswoman who was the coolest person I had ever met. She had gone to art school, lived off campus, was wry and curious and kind and superhip, and one day when I had admired the box, she gave it to me. It was the perfect size for a pack of cigarettes, a license, and a twenty. When I tried to pull money out of my treasured tin wallet to pay for the round, Nora waved it away.

Where had she been for so many months? I asked, and Nora gave me an appraising once-over. She calmly explained to me that she had been brought into a drug-smuggling enterprise by a friend of her sister, who was “connected,” and that she had gone to Europe and been formally trained in the ways of the underworld by an American art dealer who was also “connected.” She had smuggled drugs into this country and been paid handsomely for her work.

I was completely floored. Why was Nora telling me this? What if I went to the police? I ordered another drink, half-certain that Nora was making the entire thing up and that this was the most harebrained seduction attempt ever.
I had met Nora’s younger sister once before, when she came to visit. She went by the name of Hester, was into the occult, and would leave a trail of charms and feathered trinkets made of chicken bones. I thought she was just a Wiccan heterosexual version of her sister, but apparently she was the lover of a West African drug kingpin. Nora described how she had traveled with Hester to Benin to meet the kingpin, who went by the name Alaji and bore a striking resemblance to MC Hammer. She had stayed as a guest at his compound, witnessed and been subject to “witch-doctor” ministrations, and was now considered his sister-in-law. It all sounded dark, awful, scary, wild—and exciting beyond belief. I couldn’t believe that she, the keeper of so many terrifying and tantalizing secrets, was taking me into her confidence.

It was as if by revealing her secrets to me, Nora had bound me to her, and a secretive courtship began. No one would call Nora a classic beauty, but she had wit and charm in excess and was a master at the art of seeming effortlessness. And as has always been true, I respond to people who come after me with clear determination. In her seduction of me, she was both persistent and patient.

Over the months that followed, we grew much closer, and I learned that a number of local guys I knew were secretly working for her, which proved reassuring to me. I was entranced by the illicit adventure Nora represented. When she was in Europe or Southeast Asia for a long period of time, I all but moved into her house, caring for her beloved black cats, Edith and Dum-Dum. She would call at odd hours of the night from the other side of the globe to see how the kitties were, and the phone line would click and hiss with the distance. I kept all this quiet—even as I was dodging questions from my already-curious friends.

Since business was conducted out of town, the reality of the drugs felt like a complete abstraction to me. I didn’t know anyone who used heroin; and the suffering of addiction was not something I thought about. One day in the spring Nora returned home with a brand-new white Miata convertible and a suitcase full of money. She dumped the cash on the bed and rolled around in it, naked and giggling. It was her biggest payout yet. Soon I was zipping around in that Miata, with Lenny Kravitz on the tape deck demanding to know, “Are You Gonna Go My Way?”

Despite (or perhaps because of) the bizarre romantic situation with Nora, I knew I needed to get out of Northampton
and do something. My friend Lisa B. and I had been saving our tips and decided that we would quit our jobs at the brewery and take off for San Francisco at the end of the summer. (Lisa knew nothing about Nora’s secret activities.) When I told Nora, she replied that she would love to have an apartment in San Francisco and suggested that we fly out there and house-hunt. I was shocked that she felt so strongly about me.

Just weeks before I was to leave Northampton, Nora learned that she had to return to Indonesia. “Why don’t you come with me, keep me company?” she suggested. “You don’t have to do anything, just hang out.”

I had never been out of the United States. Although I was supposed to begin my new life in California, the prospect was irresistible. I wanted an adventure, and Nora had one on offer. Nothing bad had ever happened to the guys from Northampton who had gone with her to exotic places as errand boys—in fact, they returned with high-flying stories that only a select group could even hear. I rationalized that there was no harm in keeping Nora company. She gave me money to purchase a ticket from San Francisco to Paris and said there would be a ticket to Bali waiting for me at the Garuda Air counter at Charles de Gaulle. It was that simple.

Nora’s cover for her illegal activities was that she and her partner in crime, a goateed guy named Jack, were starting an art and literary magazine—questionable, but it lent itself to vagueness. When I explained to my friends and family that I was moving to San Francisco and would be working and traveling for the magazine, they were uniformly surprised and suspicious of my new job, but I rebuffed their questions, adopting the air of a woman of mystery. As I drove out of Northampton headed west with my buddy Lisa, I felt as if I were finally embarking on my life. I felt ready for anything.

Lisa and I drove nonstop from Massachusetts to the Montana border, taking turns sleeping and driving. In the middle of the night we pulled into a rest stop to sleep, where we awoke to see the incredible golden eastern Montana dawn. I could not remember ever being so happy. After lingering in Big Sky country, we sped through Wyoming and Nevada until finally we sailed over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. I had a plane to catch.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Spiegel & Grau (April 6, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385523386
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385523387
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.38 x 1.26 x 9.74 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #864,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #136 in New England U.S. Biographies
- #3,658 in Criminology (Books)
- #11,440 in Women's Biographies

Customer Reviews:
8,211 ratings

About the author

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Piper Kerman

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Piper Eressea Kerman (born September 28, 1969) is an American memoirist convicted of felony money-laundering charges; her experiences in prison provided the basis for the comedy-drama Netflix series Orange Is the New Black.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Mark Schierbecker (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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4 star		21%
3 star		11%
2 star		5%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Bibliophile

No depth, boring.

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2020

Verified Purchase

I know this review is late in the game but here goes.

I bought the book, recently, because it was only about $7 bucks and I needed a few dollars more to get free shipping on my other item/s. I did enjoy the Netflix series and of course I didn't expect the book would be the same. I had even read some of the negative reviews a few years back, but I was curious and I thought, could it really be that bad. It was. For a woman with an Ivy League education she writes like a middle schooler, though not surprising as her maturity level demonstrated by her though processes don't seem to go much beyond that stage.

Aside from being extremely boring, Ms. Kerman seems to think/act as if she's in (and winning) the title of most popular girl in school. She claims, near the end of the book, to have learned some life lessons and has transformed her perspective after spending a year in prison, but this sure isn't reflected in her attitudes in this book that was written post transformation. I was especially bothered that whenever she talked about other inmates she felt the need to describe them by their race or ethnicity, rather than as actual people these women were. They were so much more than Spanish Mamis, or large black women, or Italians, yet this is constant and repetitious throughout the narrative. When she refers to other white prisoners she manages to add adjectives to demonstrate that while they're indeed white, they are of a much lower class than she. This, to me, speaks volumes about who Piper Kerman really is. A woman who, though she claims otherwise, doesn't have a clue about her whiteness or the privelege that affords. Not only did she have the advantage of this privelege in getting top shelf representation and a relatively short sentence; her confinement was made easier due to access to money (commissary) and many regular frequent visitors. Unlike most of the women she served time with, many of them would go to homeless shelters and had few or no options, Ms. Kerman had a good job custom created and waiting for her. I'm sure that any one of the other inmates would have had a much more interesting story, but once out they were probably too busy trying to survive to be able to write their prison memoirs.

Quite honestly, she claims that prison was horrible, and I'm not disputing that, but her experience seems pretty mild compared to horror stories I've heard about life inside prisons. I think she got off pretty easy, lucky for her.

The picture (included here) of the author on the back cover kind of says it all; her pose, her body language, face thrust upward, seems to say I'm better than you.

34 people found this helpful

Helpful

Andrew Bansal

I read the book AFTER watching the Netflix series ... and ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2020

Verified Purchase

OITNB the book is VERY different from OITNB the Netflix series, in every way imaginable. The book carries a far more focused agenda than that of the web TV series, and comes across as decidedly more uplifting, heartwarming, positive, and ... real. After binge-watching the entire Netflix series within a week (thank you, COVID-19) and then immediately ordering and reading the book right after, I have come to the conclusion that the style in which the book is written would not make for a great TV show, and vice versa is true for the TV show. But it's certainly very, very interesting to consume and compare both variants. I'm not one to spoil the book, or the TV series, so I'll just leave it at that.

I highly recommend this book, not just to fans of the corresponding Netflix adaptation of OITNB, but generally to fans of biographies, memoirs, prison tales and rehabilitation / redemption stories. I found OITNB to be a quick, fun read, as I finished the 300-page book within a total duration of 7 hours spread across 3 days. The real-life Piper Kerman sure is an inspiration, and I'd be very much inclined to read more of her works, if she goes on to write any in future. Kudos to her for a brilliantly written book.

15 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jessie's Book Blog

Way Different From the Show

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2016

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Like most people, I was first introduced to this story from the show on Netflix. While waiting for the new season to come out it prompted me to buy the book and see how similar it was to Hollywood's spin on things. The book is MUCH different than the show. And better. The book, while it is a memoir written by Piper, makes her out to be a much better person than the Piper on the TV show. Now, if you haven't read the book or seen the TV show and you have plans to, I suggest you stop reading because there are SPOILERS ahead....

The real Piper, whose last name is Kerman and not Chapman, didn't seem as conniving or crazy as the TV show Piper. She didn't take part in a dirty panties operation, didn't do her time with Alex Voss (only a few short weeks when they were testifying in Chicago), and never got starved by the head kitchen worker. As an avid reader, I get it - the book is always different than when Hollywood takes over and makes dramatic effect on it.

The book was very informative - it displayed women bonding in a situation that is less than desirable for most of the human population. While most women, when put together with other women in cramped up places usually proves as challenging and scary, Piper Kerman talked about the positives when it came to serving time together. She included many details that the show leaves out - it was nice to actually get in her head and feel the emotions of doing time.

I'm giving it 4 stars because it took me a little longer to finish than other books. While not a bad book, there were parts where I had a hard time focusing because it felt repetitive and unnecessary. If you were into the TV show, check this out. While there are shades of similarities, the book is extremely different than what Netflix has shared with us.

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Mrs Helen S Leecy

Interesting Read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 6, 2020

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I absolutely love the TV series, so I have been a bit reluctant to read this as I’m not a big fan of reading a book after watching either the series or movie. However, I needed a book to fill my ‘a book with a colour in the title’ reading challenge category and this fit that bill perfectly, so I decided to give it a try.
I requested the Kindle sample to begin with just to make sure I enjoyed the writing style but as soon as I finished the sample I swiftly bought the book and carried on reading as I was gripped right from the beginning.
Even though the TV series is BASED on this, that is all it is. If you expect to know all the characters, you are going to be disappointed. They all have different names, and even when names you may recognise are mentioned, this doesn’t mean they will have the same personality and characteristics as those from the show. I could identify a few, Pop being the most like Red and Yoga Janet like Yoga Jones. However, Crazy Eyes is completely different as is Pennsatucky. This made it feel as if you were reading a completely different story to that of Piper Chapman from the series. It was great to be able to differentiate between the two and made the book more enjoyable. You were still able to visualise certain scenarios and scenes, however.
I’m not sure if reading this while our country is in lockdown was the best idea. We are all locked up in our houses with restricted freedom but reading this really made me appreciate all that I do have in comparison to really being locked up in prison. I still have all my home comforts, my TV programmes, my favourite food and of course my husband and cats. All of these things would be absent in prison, so I really have nothing to complain about.
Reading it made me feel quite claustrophobic; however, having all your rights removed and being at the mercy of the CO’s whims is something I can’t even begin to fathom. Even though Piper Kerman’s experience didn’t sound that horrendous compared to how we all think prison could be; it was still a cautionary tale about not breaking the law.
I thought the book was excellently written, it evoked all the emotions that she must have been feeling and I’m delighted I read it to experience the real Piper’s story.

10 people found this helpful

Mr. Othniel Smith

A colourful read...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 21, 2019

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he book which launched the much-lauded television series (not the mention the gifs, t-shirts etc); this is the true tale of Piper Kerman's relatively brief sentence for drugs crimes, mostly served in the comparative calm and comfort of a low-security prison in Connecticut.

Neither pleading innocence nor revelling in her former criminality, Kerman recounts her offences, the long wait for justice, and her jail time with journalistic frankness. The story she tells is unsensational, although the bases for some of the characters and dramas which unfold in the television series are more than evident. Her struggle is simply to survive, and to build relationships with those inmates who are amenable whilst avoiding those who are not.

She expresses ire at the ineffectiveness of the prison system to rehabilitate offenders; and gives vent to her despair at the "war on drugs", which sees jails full of relatively low-level, non-violent victims of circumstance and limited opportunity. As an educated middle-class women with a meaningful life on the outside, she is painfully aware of her white privilege.

This is a lively, colourful read, especially recommended for those who spout cliches about prison being like a holiday camp - the psychological toll on even someone as centred as Kerman is palpable.

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Boingboing

The Importance of shower shoes and a gazillion uses for maxi-pads.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2019

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Would I have read this book if I hadn't already seen a couple of series of the TV show in Amazon Prime? In all honesty, probably not. But I'm glad that I did read it because I found it to be one of the most well-written 'personal experience' books I've read in a long time. Sadly I've had rather too many 'my sh*t life' books written by people who probably should have just given an interview and then shut up about it. In comparison to those, 'Orange is the New Black' is really refreshing.

Firstly it's well written - not one of those rambling all over the place accounts of difficult times by people who don't actually seem to be able to remember what happened. Perhaps we should encourage more writers to get locked up so they can produce such good books.

Secondly, this is absolutely not a 'poor me' pity party; quite the opposite. Kerman goes in to prison understandably scared and worried about how the others will react to a middle class, educated white girl, and she makes some amazingly good friends. That's not to suggest that anybody would WANT to do over a year in an American jail, but she does a great job of seeing the good in people and giving the best of herself to others.

The book is almost totally free of self-pity or blaming other people (though maybe a smidge for the evil ex-GF who got her into the drug trade) and filled with realisations that what she did was wrong, should be punished and had consequences for others.

Some may say "It's not as good as the TV show" but it's more 'real'. TV polishes things to fit a nice story into 40 minutes or so each week and gives every character a compelling back story. This doesn't. It just takes a bunch of people who made some bad mistakes and gives Piper K the chance to observe and learn from her and their experiences

11 people found this helpful

M. Dowden

Doing Time in Federal Prison

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 26, 2021

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The story of Piper Kerman by herself, whose memoir went on to become the basis of the hit tv series. If you have only ever seen the series then you will certainly find this book somewhat different so please be aware of this, so as to avoid disappointment.

For Piper, the law eventually caught up with her for something that she did ten years previously for her girlfriend of that time. Thus, charged with money laundering and drug trafficking so she pleaded guilty and was sent to federal prison for fifteen months. As such this is an average standard prison fare type read, although for Piper it was an eye-opening experience and she now works on various panels to try to change the justice system in the US. Although well enough written and the author as such does not brood on such things as poor little me being caught out, there is still that middle class feel to this as we read of how she feels for others less well off than her. After all this was a woman who could afford legal defence, had many visitors whilst she was incarcerated and was sent lots of packages. I will admit that I did get annoyed at one stage when Piper talks about the frustration of not being able to attend her grandmother’s funeral, my annoyance being that the author is doing time and then somehow was expecting to be given leave to attend a funeral. This is the type of middle-class white person expectation that minorities in the US would not even expect to be offered, so why should she be any different?

At the end of the day then you do not really get the feeling of hopelessness and fear that many must experience finding themselves being incarcerated, and we can see that Piper is treated somewhat gently by most people in this book and so there is not enough of the real danger and horror of prison life, just more on the state of the showers and no proper rehabilitation.

Kerman is right about the number of people locked up in America and as with this country there are obviously much better and it has to be said, cheaper ways of dealing with some criminals who have done something really petty and could be released into the general populace. They just need to be punished say with community service and given advice and help for where they have gone wrong. The thing that the author does grasp and is trying to do is alter things to try and improve the system, after all those who do obviously need to be locked up are shown here not to be given the chance to improve, alter their behaviour or given advice what to do when leaving the prison system, which in and of itself can cause massive problems, such as leading to re-offending, especially if someone becomes too institutionalized. In all then an average read but not something that really stands above many other such books, and it was really the tv series that has made many read this book.

One person found this helpful

WorcesterBlue

Preferred the series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 30, 2019

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The book is a memoir by Piper Kerman who is convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut for drug trafficking. The book features many of the story-lines used in the series but there are also major differences including name changes.
I found the book interesting but mainly because I was constantly trying to compare the book to the series. I am pretty sure that there are better books around that cover the same types of experience.
I normally prefer books to films but not this time.

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